


50 First Dates

by Xagave



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Sexual Situations, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Enthusiastic Consent, Gillplay, Grinding, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Neck Kissing, Oviparous Trolls (Homestuck), Purring Trolls (Homestuck), Quadrant Confusion, Rough Sex, Self-Hatred, Troll Gills (Homestuck), Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 10:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20241340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xagave/pseuds/Xagave
Summary: Karkat reconnects with a friend.





	50 First Dates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FindingZ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FindingZ/gifts).

> Kissing is like drinking salted water. You drink, and your thirst increases. -Chinese Proverb

Your name is Karkat Vantas and tonight is your wriggling day, though like always, you wish it weren’t.

The stars in the night sky have secreted themselves away behind a wall of impenetrable clouds so thick that not even moonlight can break through, and you cast your gaze up as you feel the first few droplets of what you hope will only be a light sprinkle land on your head. You scowl. Even the weather isn’t a fan of your hatching. As if on cue, a gust of cold wind slaps you on the back of the neck and you shrink down into the collar of your sweater, watching a few stray crumpled dead leaves skirt around your feet down the sidewalk and into the bus stop shelter you always take to get home.

Like always, the busses are as unreliable as ever and you can’t wait to sit here for an extra half hour because the damn things are perpetually behind schedule whenever you _personally_ have places to be. You enter the shelter and sit down on the only available seat, glancing for a scant second at the person huddled up in the other one.

You stare at him far longer than what’s considered normal.

He’s got his feet up on the seat and is leaning against the glass wall of the shelter, hiding most of his face under like three fucking scarves but you’d recognize those zigzag horns and that poof of obnoxious violet hair anywhere.

“Eridan?” you ask after what seems like an eternity of staring.

Eridan lifts his face from his mobile scarf pile and goes through an array of emotions, ranging from annoyed to startled to an almost embarrassed sort of neutral. You almost forgot how expressive he is, especially when caught by surprise.

“Oh, hey Kar,” he says eventually, and you can tell that he wants to hide in his scarves again from the way his fins nervously ripple like sails. “Fancy seein’ you here after alla this time.” You wait for him to say more but he just looks at you instead, like he doesn't know how to take part in an actual conversation. It's honestly a wonder the guy has made it this far in life, as any other caste probably would have gotten culled long ago for sheer gross incompetence.

“What are you doing here?” you try, genuinely curious. This is a midblood area of town and for all you know someone like Eridan has no business here. You’ve never known him to be someone who leaves his island for much of anything that isn't FLARP-related, doubly so since whatever he desires is airdropped to him within 24 hours.

It takes Eridan a couple seconds to come up with some bullshit answer for you, and you know it's bullshit because of his panicked expression and the way he avoids your eyes to instead study the ugly ad plastered to the side of the bus shelter.

“Uh, I-I was, y’know…”

“Did you get the invitation?” you ask, cutting him off mid-blubbering. “The one for my stupidass wriggling day party that was tonight?”

Eridan shrinks in on himself. “Yeah, I got it.”

The admission turns something inside you. The daze of suddenly coming face to face with your wigglerhood gossip buddy is shredded and replaced in an instant with something sharp and jagged.

“Everyone else was there,” you tell him severely. You watch Eridan try to fold in on himself and slip into a pocket dimension to escape your wrath and you belatedly realize that you're angry with him.

Not because of the party, you don't care about the fucking party or the fact that he wasn't a participant.

You're upset because nobody has seen or heard from Eridan in almost a sweep (and apparently nobody ever cared but you) and tonight of all nights, he just so happens to be in your favorite bus stop and you suddenly have a terrible geyser of _feelings_ welling up inside of you that you didn’t know were there. Awful, angry feelings that bubble up in the pit of your stomach like rancid tar and god damn it you _miss him._

You tamp down the frothing ire in your gut and unclench your jaw, blinking back the beginnings of angry tears and look at Eridan. Actually _look_ at him. Half his face is buried beneath the scarves again and he’s looking at you with big doleful eyes like a kicked puppy who never meant to make you upset. His glasses are smudged, his cape is missing, and you’ve never felt so relieved, so angry, so confused, and _so fucking sad_ to see someone before.

It’s a noxious combination of emotions that makes you want to throw up, throttle Eridan, then never let him out of your sight again, in exactly that order.

“I waited for your sorry ass to show up for _four hours_ before I had to get shit moving, but I guess that was my fault for hoping you’d stop by and see your best fucking friend when I haven’t even heard a peep from you on Trollian in what, how many perigees has it been?”

Eridan doesn’t take his eyes off of you but doesn’t make a move to speak, either. Acid burns in your throat and there’s so much you want to say to Eridan but you don’t know where to start.

This isn’t the happy reunion you thought it would be whenever you eventually crossed paths with your friend again. It’s the exact opposite and you hate yourself for being so upset with him but how couldn’t you be? He’d vanished off the face of Alternia, and if it weren’t for Trollian showing him as online you’d have figured he’d gotten himself killed.

The more you yell at him the more miserable Eridan looks and the worse you feel. It’s not cathartic like it is in your movies, so you painfully bite down on your tongue to stem the flow of virulent word vomiting before you say something you’ll regret.

You sit with Eridan in silence for a tense minute and watch raindrops stain the cement outside the bus shelter with a soft _pat-pat-pat,_ wrapping your arms around your middle as the chill of the night seeps through your sweater.

“Why are you here?” you try again, nicer this time.

Eridan startles at the question, probably lost in his own thoughts like you are. He doesn’t answer right away and you don’t pressure him to. “I was gonna go to the party,” he eventually confesses, “but I chickened out.”

“That sounds like a load of steaming shit,” you tell him, and Eridan scoffs like he's offended.

“You should be thankful I'd even admit to such personal, private feelings,” Eridan blusters, throwing in a small toss of his horns for added flare.

You've always been good at spotting Eridan’s lies, but maybe him not being a very good liar in the first place has something to do with it. Or maybe you simply know him well enough to call him out on his horseshit. Either way, his reaction conjures up something warm inside you and a smile tugs at the corners of your lips despite yourself. Eridan grins ever so slightly into his scarves and you wish you could burn that image into your memory forever.

Every now and then your bus shows up earlier rather than later, and you spot it trotting along at the end of the road, ten minutes ahead of schedule. You stand up and fish some loose change from your pocket then turn to Eridan, who is watching you with an unreadable expression.

“This is my bus,” you say.

“Oh. Ok then, well…” You watch in amusement as his fins wilt almost comically.

“Come home with me.” That spurs a reaction from Eridan, his fins snapping up to attention and his eyes as big as nutrition plateaus.

“W-what?”

“I said move your ass, your highness, and get on this fucking scuttlebus with me.”

Eridan does just that, and you've never seen a troll look so scared yet so hideously hopeful in your entire life. You step into the bus and pay your fare and have just enough change left over to pay for Eridan as well, and as you move down the aisle you look behind you to find Eridan turning up his nose at having to ride _public transit._

Oh, the horror. 

* * *

Your hive looks almost the same as it did in your youth. It’s just as pristine as always -- there’s not a single drop of sopor slime out of place and every sock has a home. The posters that lined the walls when you were a kid have mostly been switched out for newer things, though you’ve kept up a favorite or two. You like to think your choices in movies and TV shows have improved as you’ve aged, and anyone who says otherwise is obviously too obtuse and borderline braindead to understand fine entertainment.

Eridan follows you throughout your hive, looking a little lost in thought as he takes in his surroundings. You direct him to sit on the couch and ask if he would like anything to eat or drink (you are an excellent host) and he requests juice, of all things, like he’s five.

There’s some apple juice in the thermal hull so you bring him a glass of that and he downs almost all of it immediately. You sit down by him, not quite sure what to say now that you’ve got him in your hive.

“Fuckin’ hell, Kar, I didn’t expect your taste in TV shows to still be shit,” Eridan blurts out for you. “Don’t you think Thresh Prince has gotten a little old by now?”

If you weren’t sitting you’d take a step back, affronted by such an erroneous accusation, but as it is the most you manage is to choke on your own spit and nearly gouge more holes into your couch from your claw tips.

“How is it that the first fucking thing that violently spews out of your barely-functional underdeveloped slack-jawed maw is an entirely incorrect, at best _atrocious_ criticism of a beloved classic -- a world-renowned one at that? Sorry it’s not up to your fancy-ass golden highblood standards Mr. Sir Prince Sea Dweller Nobleman, excuse me while I furiously and forcefully shit my pants daily on a rigorous timed schedule and then frantically scoop the rancid slop down my own throat because according to you, everything I consume is utter crap. Have mercy on me for not selecting something more appropriate that assuages your inner highblood urges, you might as well remove your gross, clammy, barnacle-encrusted, borderline calcified hand from your already slurry-stained pants because you won’t be tugging your bulge tonight to my inferior selection of media!”

Holy shit, you don’t remember the last time someone got you riled up enough to rant like this.

“Fuck you and especially fuck your terrible taste in timeless classics you impudent-” Eridan cuts you off by setting a hand on your shoulder. He’s cold, much colder than you remember; you can feel the chill through the material of your sweater and you distantly wonder if that’s how he always feels or if the crisp outside air got to him.

“Kar, I ain’t never said Thresh Prince was bad,” Eridan supplies, removing his hand.

You have no rebuttal, you simply stare at where his hand was and not so secretly wish to yourself that he’d put it back.

Eridan is here, he’s real, and he’s on your couch in your hive. All this time has gone by and he still knows how to get you to shut the fuck up. Something gnaws at your pusher, icy and brittle and painful and you don’t have the words to describe how you feel right now but at the pit of your stomach blooms a seething, boiling resentment.

It’s been so long.

You have plenty of friends and always have, but there will never be another troll quite like Eridan, for better or for worse. Fuck him for never saying a word to you, fuck him for leaving you behind for whatever asinine bull fucking _shit_ he got up to without you.

Were you always that worthless to him? You can still replay some of the conversations word for word the both of you had when you were kids, when Eridan would come crying to you over something totally, absolutely stupid but you were always there to talk him through it. Nobody could quite vibe on the same frequency with you like that douchebag did but you were always a waste of space and you’re angrier at yourself for letting him just fucking leave.

You never thought such a simple touch from a long-lost friend could wound you so mercilessly, and you hate him for it.

“Kar?”

Eridan’s voice jolts you back into the present. He looks a smidge concerned, you must have been staring at nothing (at him?) You frown and stand up, wordlessly going to your DVD stash and digging around until you find the box set of Thresh Prince. Prize in hand, you make a show of inserting the first disc into the TV (you saved up to get the good DVDs, the circular ones, not the hexagonal pieces of shit) and plant your glutes on the couch again.

“We’re watching Thresh Prince and you can zip your lips shut tighter than a clam with lockjaw,” you order, absolute in your arrangement for the rest of the night. There’s something about the familiarity of the show that eases the tension in your shoulders and helps break down the awkwardness of reconnecting with childhood friends.

Maybe it could be like old times. Maybe the split-second decision to invite Eridan into your hive won’t totally obliterate your life.

Eridan offers you the smallest of smiles and leans back against the couch, seeming to feel the same loss of strain as you have.

“I think I’d like that a lot,” he says.

* * *

You’re way too many episodes in when you notice the time.

The great thing about the dim season is that for a solid chunk of it, the sun mostly doesn’t come out and it remains dusk for most of the day. Regardless, you figure Eridan might like a heads up in case he wants to go home, but when you turn to look at him he’s passed the fuck out, tiny snoring and all.

Should you wake him?

He’s welcome to sleep here. The closer you look the more apparent the bags under his eyes are, and his hair isn’t as prim and proper as you remember. You wonder when the last time he got a good, proper day’s sleep was because he sort of looks like shit.

You wouldn’t know because he never fucking talks to you anymore and the thought causes a boulder to settle heavy and uncomfortable right in your middle.

Eridan doesn’t owe you anything and if he doesn’t want you in his life anymore then that’s that, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling like there’s an aching chasm that’s been growing and growing inside of you ever since he started ignoring your messages. But with every little breathy snore from Eridan, that chasm seems to close up just a little more and you hate how that’s all it takes to make you not want to punch the stupid out of him.

And he’s handsome, too, is the worst part. Eridan is slumped over on the couch, head tilted to the side, and there’s some drool leaking out of the corner of his mouth that’s collecting on a scarf.

It’s disgusting - _he’s_ disgusting, but you admire the shape of his jaw and the sleek bend to his horns anyways and wish you could run your fingers through his slightly disheveled hair until he purrs.

You decide that, at the very least, you can help Eridan into your coon. It’s not quite roomy enough for two but that’s ok, you’ll crash on the couch. The universe must be playing some sort of sick joke because when you gently shake Eridan’s shoulder to wake him, he flops over onto you and if he were any other troll you’d shove him off right then and there.

But because it’s Eridan, you maybe leave him there.

Some drool touches you and you don’t give two steaming shits.

He’s warmer, now that he’s been in your admittedly toasty hive for a few hours, and with the way he’s sprawled on you you’re basically trapped on your own couch unless you want to wake him anyways and embarrass the everloving fuck out of him for drooling on you. Maybe it won’t be so terrible sleeping on the couch.

You stare at him again. You can smell the shampoo from his hair; it smells expensive and only makes you want to touch it even more, and just having Eridan here with you makes something warm and safe blossom where something cold and fragile once lived in your chest.

Eventually you tear your eyes off Eridan and make it through one and a half more episodes of Thresh Prince before you find yourself falling asleep, knowing that you’re totally, irrevocably _fucked._

* * *

Eridan leaves the next night, and the night after that he messages you on Trollian.

It’s a bit of a rough start to rekindle an almost dead friendship but the two of you make it work. A sweep isn’t an awfully long amount of time; your interests still reside in harlequin romance stuff and Eridan still FLARPs.

He tells you about how he’s had a close call or two while out on a FLARP excapade and even shows you some pics of the outlandish cosplays he’d had commissioned. Later on, he admits to you that he’s more into mapmaking and painting minifigs now than he is into FLARPing but kept it up because it was the only real contact he had with other trolls. You tell him about your aging lusus and he tells you about the strained relationship he has with his own, and perhaps you give him some advice on how to deal with that.

There are times where all the two of you do is bitch about stuff that doesn't matter, and other days you bitch about things that do. He got you to play World of Warcraft with him and in return you had him watch more Thresh Prince until he begged for mercy.

He falls back into your life the same way he left it: abrupt and without warning.

Weeks pass by.

Eridan sends you Snapchat selfies out of the blue sometimes and maybe you even send one or two back, though you never look as good in yours as Eridan does in his. He sends carefully cultivated selfies, expending a stupid amount of effort in order to look as dashing and dangerous as possible because Eridan wouldn’t be Eridan if he didn’t put a dramatic flair into everything he does and it’s the most goddamn aggravating thing in the world.

The things you notice the most in his photos are the lack of dark circles under his eyes and how he no longer curls in on himself so much like he's trying to hide. His hair is either sleek, shiny and put together or a windswept mess and you don't know which you like better. At one point you tell him to stop wearing so many scarves, and he responds by sending you a picture of him wearing every scarf he has, looking down his nose at the camera like the holier-than-thou prick he is.

But by far the biggest change you've seen is how much Eridan smiles now.

It’s mostly small, shy barely-there grins, but sometimes he beams at you so fiercely you'd think his cheeks might burst open. You don't remember him ever smiling before but you love how he looks so much more alive.

You screenshot each and every Snapchat selfie Eridan sends you and not once has he complained or called you out for it. You think maybe he likes the attention, and you’re embarrassed to admit to yourself that you pull the pictures up fairly often and wonder just how soft his cheeks would feel under your hand, or how his lips would feel against your own.

The mere thought of kissing Eridan makes you so elated and _furious_ that you could call a drone to cull you right now immediately, but instead you just hurl a couple foul names at Eridan and call it a day. He must know you better than you’d thought because he asks you what’s wrong and you bitch him out in response. The icing on the everything-is-terrible-cake is that afterwards: Eridan airdrops you some of your favorite sweets and you’ve never hated a gift so much in your entire wretched life because it makes you love the bastard even more.

Your life will never be like your favorite romcoms because the entirety of your existence is a mistake on a grand cosmic scale, and if Eridan was ever caught with a mutant quadmate he’d be dead on the spot.

You want to pull your hair out in frustration.

Instead, you clamber up into your coon and throw yourself in with zero regard for whether or not sopor slime sloshes over the rim and onto the floor, pulling out your phone to stare at another fucking picture of Eridan. He’s just as handsome as ever (he’d be even prettier if he stopped scowling all the damn time) and it makes you miserable to know that one day Eridan could get a quadmate and it won’t be you. The longer you sit in the slime and think about some other troll kissing Eridan the worse you feel, wondering if you can drown yourself in sopor to get rid of these obnoxious feelings. Unfortunately, you’re more than aware that sopor promotes oxygen transfer through the skin so you swipe to another picture of Eridan, one of the staged selfies where he's trying to come off as a deadly, dangerous predator.

He's staring down the camera like he's stalking prey, those gorgeous violet-tinted fins fanned out and lips parted just enough to see the tips of those razor sharp teeth poking out.

Eridan might be a wreck of a troll but _fuck_ can he ever take a good selfie, and you take your sweet ass time admiring it (admiring _him_).

You wish he'd look at you like that, like he can't wait to devour you alive and get his chilly hands all over you and you've never felt so disgusting and guilty in your entire life as you reach down to undo your pants.

This is the epitome of what it's like to be the worst friend who ever existed ever but it doesn't stop you from thinking about what it would be like if Eridan kissed you with those soft lips, grazing your own with his sharp teeth as a not-so-subtle threat about what he could do to you, if he wanted.

Or he could caress your sides like you're a delicate treasure he's scared to break, mindful of the claws as he kisses your breath away so sweet and gentle that you could cry. He could carefully pap the tears away while you fall into a million pieces in his arms and nothing has ever sounded so painfully wonderful in all your life and you hate yourself for it.

Your now-awakened bulge curls around a few of your fingers and you decide it’s not worth the risk of damaging your phone by accidentally dropping it in the slime, flinging it onto a nearby dresser and plunging your now free second hand into the coon. As smoking hot as Eridan is, it feels almost uncomfortable to have his eyes on you right now (even if it’s just from a photo) as you touch yourself, despite thinking of him in some rather obscene poses.

Guilt wells up in your chest; you're a shitty friend and would be an even shittier boyfriend and Eridan would be disgusted if he saw you now, one hand letting the tip of your bulge curl around your fingers as your other hand grips it at the base and tugs.

You slip a little lower into the sopor and arch your back, pushing more of yourself into your hand (what if this was Eridan’s hand, or even his _mouth_) and spreading your legs as wide as the coon allows.

The slime slicks you right up but you wouldn't need it anyways with how your nook throbs and aches to be filled, but as you let your bulge curl around your wrist you're consumed with a sense of emptiness as you remind yourself that you're all alone in your coon. Eridan isn't here to wrap those pretty lips around your scarlet bulge and you can't grab those sleek lightning bolt horns and pull him closer until he's taken you in to the base, bright vivid red dribbling down his chin as he effortlessly swallows everything you give him.

You jerk your bulge so forcefully that the top of the sopor jiggles like jello, and you finish to the thought of your best friend licking up any remaining traces of material after sucking you off.

If there was ever a phrase to describe you it would either be walking, talking disgrace, or needlessly, hopelessly in love. Maybe a nauseating combination of the two.

You sigh and sink down into the slime until it just barely covers your nose, cursing your past self for getting into the coon without undressing beforehand. Not only do you have to wash your clothes due to your error in judgement, but you're gonna have to unclog the recuperacoon filter as well once it finishes sifting your genetic material from the slime.

You sleep instead of doing either of those tasks.

* * *

Never in a million sweeps will you let Eridan know what you’ve done.

Despite the weird mix of shame and awkwardness swirling through your chest when you think about it, you can’t _stop_ thinking about it, or more specifically, about Eridan. It’s like he’s the only subject your grotesque abnormal pan can parse right now so like any rational troll, you ignore Eridan’s messages for the next night and blame your absence on having to run errands.

He believes you, and you manage to get your cranium screwed back on enough to decide that this shit needs to end now.

You like Eridan, you really, really do, but you know without a shadow of a doubt that nobody wants a troll who can’t keep it in one quadrant.

The first thing you do is bring up the saved photos of Eridan on your phone. There’s the urge to look through them one last time but you ignore it, and after half an hour of internally debating with yourself you finally take the plunge and delete every single picture in one fell swoop before you can convince yourself otherwise. You and Eridan will never happen and the thought is beyond painful but it’s a bitter truth you’ll have to accept, and you do accept it, despite the ache in your pusher and how your limbs feel numb and heavy. At the very least, Eridan is still your friend. Just because you deleted his pics doesn’t mean you’ve lost him entirely and you resign yourself to having _something_, at the very least. You can be his friend, same as always, and any thoughts of Eridan being something more can shrivel up and die in the deepest pits of your mind where they belong.

* * *

The weeks following The Selfie Purge were miserable, to say the least.

You’ve gotten a grip on your weird obsession and you don’t treat Eridan any differently than normal, but it’s the little stuff he does that makes you desperately wish you could live another life where you didn’t have a death sentence slipping through your veins (Eridan knows and doesn’t care but _you_ care) and a mind that can’t keep quadrants in their own sectioned-off little boxes.

Eridan buys you treats when he picks up on your dismal attitude and bleaker than normal outlook on life, and every time you pick up the box of whatever he’d gotten you off your front porch, you fight with yourself on whether or not to throw it away. You never do.

He goes out of his way to watch shitty romcoms and chick flicks with you - some of your older favorites - and tells you that no, he doesn’t mind watching Mean Girls for the hundredth time.

One night you wake up to another package, this one containing a stupidly expensive sickle you’ve had your eye on for at least two and a half sweeps by now that’s been customized with a single band of bright scarlet red around the bottom of the handle. You don’t even have it in you to be angry at all the fucking gifts, you just take the thing and swing it around in your block like a dumbass. You tell Eridan you love it, regretful that you can’t return the favor, and he tells you for the millionth time that he’s rich and it doesn’t matter.

Every time Eridan does something nice for you your pusher does a 360, and you swear life is out to get you and you personally. You push away your feelings for him and marinate in your self-made prison of misery but you value his friendship enough to let the feelings pass. It hurts because you love him, and maybe that will never change.

But you’re dealing with it. There’s the age-old saying of time heals all wounds, but nobody said the healing process would be painless and easy. As the weeks pass by, it gets easier and easier to deal with the ache and yearning, but it never truly goes away.

It’s manageable, ignorable, and the best you can hope for.

* * *

You don’t notice at first because the decline was slow and gradual, but Eridan doesn’t hit you up on Snapchat nearly as much. You don’t even use the damn thing other than to look at his snaps and it seems like you receive only a handful a week, when you used to get bombarded out the wazoo with asinine bullshit like yet another picture of some pain in the ass fucking clouds that look like insert commonly recognizable item here. The number of selfies has dwindled as well and it’s both a blessing and a curse; you handle your feelings better when you aren’t confronted with the fact that Eridan is a real troll who exists in the physical world with a physical very attractive body, but when he _does_ send a photo of himself he looks almost haggard.

It’s a stark change to what you’ve grown used to. He looks more like the Eridan you found at the bus stop all those months ago, tired and sad and disheveled.

He doesn’t talk to you as much now either, you've come to notice. Instead of the constant back and forth messages, you can go days without a word between the two of you and you don’t know how you feel about it.

One thing’s for certain: you miss him.

You're scared he might drop off the face of Alternia again except this time you won't be so lucky as to find him by sheer dumb luck at a shitty bus stop in town. He's going to vanish for good and it's terrifying. Eridan is your best friend and no matter how gently or subtly you try to ask what's wrong you can't pry an answer out of the guy. Is it you? Has Eridan finally had enough of your angry persona, or worse, has he found someone newer and better to occupy his time with? You hope and pray to whoever might be listening that it's the first option and you ignore just how selfish and terrible that is, because you can already feel your pusher shattering into jagged pieces at the notion that you were just a temporary item in Eridan’s life until he could find someone better, more tolerable, _normal_. You've tried so damn hard to keep yourself together and all your effort is unraveling at your feet.

There's not much you can do except distract yourself and let Eridan live his life.

After a week, you've failed to do much more than stress eat and watch way too many movies. Eridan has messaged you a grand total of two times and it's taken you this long to notice how you glance at Trollian ever so often, hoping a notification is from him. On the two occasions it _was_ him your heart soared and nothing has ever made you feel so elated yet useless in all your life.

Two weeks later you’re met with an unexpected surprise. Eridan messages you out of the blue, asking to come over, and you type out your answer so hastily you misspell almost all of it.

Excitement, relief, and utter abject terror wash over you in one huge wave that knocks you right on your ass because _Eridan is coming over._

* * *

When you open the door to let Eridan in, you weren’t expecting him to look like a supermodel if his last few Snapchat pics were anything to go by. What you’re greeted with, however, is somehow worse. He’s all around disheveled and his eyebags have eyebags; you don’t think he’s gotten a wink of sleep in the past month and wonder if he was crying before he got here. Suffice to say, Eridan looks like ass and death, as if he gave up on looking presentable. That’s not to say you’re perfect all the time - you’re pretty sure you forgot to brush your hair today out of nerves and there’s a couple empty boxes of takeout on the table you didn’t remember to toss out, but Eridan is a walking half-dead disaster.

“Eridan,” you say stupidly. That sure is his name and last time you checked he was well aware of the fact. “Come in,” you try instead. He obliges after shifting from foot to foot, and as you watch him shuffle in you see him angle away from you as if to shield his body from view. You say nothing about it.

He stands in the middle of your entertainment block like he’s never seen the place before, like he didn’t sleep on your shoulder and drool all over you a few perigees back. You make to offer him a seat but he cuts you off before you can get the first syllable out.

“Y’mind if I use your bathroom real quick?” Eridan asks, meeting your eyes for a scant second before looking away. He’s nervous, you realize, and you don’t know why. _You’re_ the one who’s supposed to be nervous.

“Uh, go for it?” you answer, and Eridan ducks his head as if to say thanks then ambles away to your ablution block.

You swallow down the impulse to ask why he looks like someone just murdered his lusus in front of him and instead watch him walk away, not sure what to do with yourself. Now that Eridan is here in the flesh you feel like a fucking idiot for stressing out over his absence on Trollian - he _clearly_ has more pressing matters to attend to in his personal life and apparently you’re just an ass with an obsession.

You want to go after him, and after a quick internal debate, you don’t.

When he comes back his face is wet and you assume he got in a quick wash to perhaps kill some nerves, but one wrong move and Eridan looks as though he just might burst into tears; you’re overcome with the powerful urge to pap him better, hold him in your arms until he stops looking like the world is caving in on him and shoosh the bastard to sleep. He’s your friend and you desperately want to help but you can’t pap him. He’s not yours, and you selfishly wish once more that he was because he’s the most important person in your wretched life and he doesn’t even know it. He sees you staring at him and his expression morphs into something unreadable.

“So-”

“Your bathroom fuckin’ sucks,” Eridan interrupts, and he somehow goes from looking like he’s got a foot in the grave to tossing his horns like he didn’t just have a cryng fit before seeing you. You’re so incredulous that all you can do is stare owlishly at him. “I ain’t never seen a hive so ill-equipped as this bunch a rubbish before I mean no offense Kar but a proper troll could never call this broken down cramped shack lookin’ gutterblood housin’ catastrophe a _hive_.”

“Are you shitting me right now?”

You’re not even mad that he’s insinuating your immaculately-kept hive somehow breaks like five health codes or whatever (especially considering you _vividly remember_ that at one point, Eridan kept wands and _only_ wands in his fridge). You’re furious that Eridan could just waltz in here looking like his world is on fire and then turn around and insult you because your tub isn’t around the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Or because your tub _isn’t_ an Olympic swimming pool.

“Look all I’m saying is that maybe this place is a little garish and-”

“No, _fuck you_,” you almost-snarl. “Don’t think I can’t see right through your transparent act, you gibbering sockhead. You and I both know damn well that you’re not here to tell me my hive is ugly. So why are you here.”

Eridan looks at you with wide eyes and you feel just as destroyed as he looks. Grief, heartache, and anger curl in your gut, burning you from the inside out like hot coals, and you feel seconds away from exploding because all you’ve ever wanted were _answers_ and the cosmic forces that be have deemed you unfit to receive anything but a life of isolated misery. Eridan is right here, you could have a good jam session like old times and things will be better but instead Eridan has to act like a shithead and you want to punch him in the jaw. “Eridan,” you plead. “Talk to me.”

You stare at him for what seems like an eternity, and he seems to make up his mind the second he starts hustling towards the door. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have come.”

In that moment you thought you’d be furious. You thought maybe you’d boil over with rage and seethe and shout until your throat is bloody and raw, begging him to stay, but instead you’re overwhelmed with a heavy, suffocating sense of sorrow and isolation that bears down on you like an avalanche of a blanket and you can’t bear to watch him leave you like this again because you’ll honest to god die. You can’t watch Eridan walk out of your life and take part of you with him, he’s going to stomp you into little bits and pieces that will never be able to be put back together again and the worst of it all is that he has no idea he’s doing it. You’ve never been so terrified and inconsolable as you watch him throw open your door.

“_Eridan,_” you shout, voice wavering because you’re _begging_ him not to go and irreparably break your heart. You can feel tears welling up in your eyes and you can’t even spare a second to feel pathetic for it because the only thing on your mind right now is Eridan.

It’s only through a miracle of miracles that you manage to grab his arm and yank him back before he can exit your life forever. Something falls out of Eridan’s hand and clatters to the floor, and you stop to look at it.

It’s a box, done up all nice with fancy metallic wrapping paper and a tiny little bow.

A present. Eridan brought you a present.

Eridan looks at the box then looks at you, looks at the streak of red on your cheek and crumples in on himself as though he could wish himself dead if he tried hard enough and you don’t understand. You pick up the gift and turn it over in your hands. “A present?” you ask, and Eridan only acknowledges the thing long enough to nod.

“For you,” he says softly.

You open it slowly and want to cry, but for a better, happier reason this time.

It’s one of your favorite movies: 50 First Dates, the special director’s cut complete with a signed, limited edition Troll Adam Sandler bobble head that you know Eridan must have shelled out the big caegars for.

You’re experiencing emotional whiplash but you manage to genuinely smile regardless. “I love it,” you say. “Holy shit, Eridan.” Was this the only reason he came to see you? To give you a gift? You look over the DVD and Eridan must see the cogs turning in your pan because he looks away like he knows what’s coming. You’re burning with the urgent need for answers and you’ve done your waiting. “Why didn’t you come to my wriggling day party? Why give this to me now?”

Eridan reacts like your words are poison as you watch his lower lip tremble and you still don’t understand anything.

“Eridan-”

“I couldn’t fuck everything up again,” he blurts out. “I forgot the fuckin’ gift so I didn’t go. I was waitin’ for my airbus when you found me.”

Big violet tears well up in his eyes and you don’t get why a gift is such a big deal.

“It’s ok if you missed the stupid party, I don’t care-”

“It’s not about the fuckin’ party!” Eridan wails, and you watch him cry as he visibly wilts on your doorstep. You hurt as he hurts and something molten and heavy and volatile flickers through you and you grab him, dragging Eridan back inside and kicking the door shut.

You crush him to your chest so hard he almost wheezes; you don’t make to let go and he doesn’t try to push away, though you can feel how he shifts to lift his arms like he wants to hug you back but drops them, uncertain if he’s allowed to touch. So you hug him enough for the both of you and listen to him sniffle, wishing you could fix this instantly but knowing you can’t do any more for Eridan but hold him. “Talk to me,” you murmur into his hair. It smells just as good as you remember and maybe you nuzzle him ever so slightly because just this once you’re allowing yourself to be greedy, because you think that maybe he needs this as much as you do.

“Seems like nobody wanted to talk to me anymore after the… incident,” Eridan starts slowly.

Ah. You remember The Incident. The Feferi Thing.

“Not that I blame anybody,” he continues, “but even after trying to make things right and apologizing til my cartilaginous nub practically made an impression in the dirt it was like nothin’ was good enough and I got snubbed no matter who I talked to.”

You don’t know what any of this has to do with Eridan ghosting the shit out of you but regardless, you don’t interrupt him.

“So I got used to it. Nobody wanted to be my friend no more? _Fine,_” he bites out, and you can tell he’s trying not to cry again. “Fuck that lot I don’t need them, I got my own shit to tend to so I stoked the fire and managed every iron I had within it with deadly accuracy, and it seemed like maybe things wouldn’t bo so god damn terrible anymore. And it was ok for a while but eventually I just got so fuckin’ _lonely,_ Kar. I hurt all the time and couldn’t sleep and felt like I’d ruined any chance to feel happy and normal again because nobody wanted to deal with me, ain’t never heard a _peep_ outta a single soul. Except you, Kar.”

Yeah, you remember that as well. You recall how angry and sad he was all the time and how you would spend hours, every single night, just keeping him company while he cried to you over text about how he’d wrecked his life and how nothing good was waiting for him in his future. You helped him to the fullest of your abilities until one night, just, _poof._

Eridan vanished.

You were inconsolable; furious and heartbroken and ruthlessly bitter and you had to force yourself to stop checking if he’d sent you any messages. At one point, you accepted the fact that those messages would never come. You did your best to move on.

“You were all I had,” Eridan continues, “and I couldn’t bear the thought of fucking your life up cause a’ my bullshit so... I left.”

In your head, you imagine how good it would feel to slap the last few remaining brain cells out of Eridan right now. You remove him from your shoulder and hold him at arm’s length because you’re _livid_ \- never before have you met someone so terribly, grossly _unintelligent_ in your whole life and it takes all you have to blink away angry tears before you start crying again. “Do you have _any idea_ the sort of shit you’ve been putting me through?” you bellow. Your voice echoes throughout the hive and Eridan looks at you like he’s been wounded. It’s quiet for a minute afterwards. You hate him, you _hate_ him with every fiber of your being, you feel it in your bones and your heart and in the scalding scarlet tears in your eyes and Eridan will never know just how much you love him for it because nobody else could make you feel such _rage._ “Why did you come back?”

“...I guess it was an accident,” Eridan finally admits softly. “Didn’t plan on doin’ much more than going to your party, really. I got your present a while ago, before I left, and thought about throwin’ it in the rubbish but it didn’t feel right. So I’d put it on a shelf and every time I passed it, the thing would just remind me that I should go see you one last time. I thought maybe I could have one more good thing - one last happy memory to remember you by but I forgot the _fuckin’_ present on the way to the party,” he finishes through clenched teeth.

The more Eridan says the more misery swells up inside of you and you aren’t sure how much more of this you can take. You belatedly realize you’re squeezing Eridan too hard, like if you let go he might turn into mist right before your eyes, because he pulls you off of him and simply holds your hands in his, so soft and gentle. Such a simple action makes you want to scream.

“I didn’t want to look like the asshat who didn’t bring a gift - you were never supposed to see me that night, Kar, and it’s only by pure chance you got to see me be a fuckup in person.”

“You could have left again but you didn’t,” you tell him, and you hate how much it sounds like you’re begging for answers. “You stayed, _why?_”

You’re desperate to understand why Eridan would do something so _stupid._

Eridan’s fins droop like wilted flowers and he looks down at his hands on top of yours, smiling sadly, and you wish you didn’t have to see him look like that. You almost wish you didn’t have to see him at all.

“Cause the more I talked to you the happier I got, Kar.”

Never before have you wanted to die as much as you do now, listening to how brittle Eridan sounds.

“I came back to finally give you the gift. Then I could leave for good cause it’s not like nobody really cares about me, good riddance, right? I mean get a fuckin’ clue for once Kar I ignored you cause I’m a plight and a poison and a curse upon anyone who comes near me and-”

“No, _no,_” you interrupt, “shut up, do not pass go, absolutely do not collect $200 you wet sack of fermented crap on a stick. Never in my life have I heard something so stupendously, so marvelously, so _quintessentially wrong_ that I swear eons into the future I will still be reeling from the force of your prodigious obtuseness you dimwitted imbecile! How do you still function in your daily life without a frontal lobe, Eridan, you’re a medical miracle, congratulations on your astounding achievement, I’ll make sure to hand you your award when you wake from your moron coma! You’re an idiot, Eridan, how’s it feel to have someone actually competent call you out on your horseshit for once?”

Eridan’s eyebrows have disappeared into his hairline and he’s let go of your hands in apparent shock. You channel your animosity and indignation to flow through your words because you don’t know how else to get this through Eridan’s thick skull, you don’t know how to make him understand that you need him and that he could crush you in an instant and all he’d have to do is walk right back out your front door. You don’t know what you’ll do if he leaves you again.

“Every time,” you tell Eridan, baring your teeth, “_every single goddamn time_ you’ve needed me I’ve been there. When Feferi broke up with you I was there. When you wouldn’t get out of your coon I was fucking there, Eridan. I helped you fix your relationship with your lusus and I got you to pick up your hobbies again and every time you complained to me about some stupid crap that didn’t matter _I listened_. Because I fucking care about you, you absolute asswipe!”

Eridan doesn’t speak for a moment, he doesn’t do anything close his eyes and frown. He’s not fucking hearing a word you say and you don’t know what you’re supposed to do to make him listen for once.

“Kar, you don’t gotta lie to protect my feelings I’m not that fuckin’ fragile. You do this for everyone, I’m not special.”

“Holy shitting _fuck_, Eridan!” you almost-screech. “If I didn’t care I would have watched you walk out of my hive, I wouldn’t be standing here crying my fucking eyes out due to your inescapable dumbassery-generated gravity field. I wouldn’t have waited with _bated-fucking-breath_ for you to message me when you wake up and I wouldn’t have jacked off to your selfies-”

You realize much, much too late what you just blurted out in your frenzied outburst until it’s too late to take it back.

Eridan is looking at you once more with eyes the size of dinner plates and you mirror his expression, absolutely _horrified._

“You jacked it to my selfies?”

Your cheeks have never been redder in your entire life and _now_ you want to die for real. You cover your face with your hands and feel fresh tears well up in your eyes and don’t know if they’re from shame or because you’re unsure how to get across to Eridan that you’ve never cared about someone so much in your whole-ass miserable life.

Just tell him, you think. Just tell him and if he still wants to go you’ll let him. Tell him, because if you don’t do it now you’ll never get to and will never be able to live with yourself for it. You’re at your wit’s end and you just told Eridan you tugged one out to his real, actual face and only a Faygo-fueled miracle will save you now.

_Tell him._

You mumble something into your hands.

“I’m sorry, what?”

You mumble slightly louder.

“Kar,” Eridan says, a hint of irritation tinging his voice.

“I said I’m fucking in love with you god damn it Eridan!” you explode.

Eridan says nothing and you’ve never felt so frustrated and so ashamed as you do now. You’ve made a mistake, you’ve thoroughly embarrassed yourself, and you desperately try to rub away the tears before Eridan notices what an emotional rollercoaster you’ve been on today. You wish things were simpler like in your movies and novels, but life will never be kind to you like that and such a freak of nature like yourself will never get a happy ending.

Eridan takes your hands and pulls them away from your eyes; you’re a gross tear-stained mess and even so, he doesn’t look at you with revulsion.

“So… what, you’re actually serious?” is what he finally says to you, that faint pathetic glimmer of hope in his eyes. He’s adorable.

“_Yes_, Eridan. I am literally telling you. I am literally telling you right now that I feel this way.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“That much is clear,” you agree.

You aren’t feeling the sort of emotions you had expected to feel, whenever you daydreamed about this. You aren’t bursting with happiness and relief and Eridan doesn’t bend you backwards, lean over you, and steal your heart for himself then ride off into the sunset with you. Instead, as your temper finally dissolves, you feel almost as if you’re in a daze. You’re overwhelmed, maybe.

Eridan just looks at you with this sanguine little smile and you’re starting to think that perhaps he isn’t as upset by your little revelation as you thought he’d be. Relief floods through you and for once you feel as close to peaceful as you can get on a planet that actively wants to kill you.

You close your eyes and heave a heavy sigh. Eridan bonks his forehead to yours and doesn’t say anything; you savor the moment and listen to him breathe in and out, in and out, and wish you could keep him here with you forever, just like this.

“I don’t mean to make this corny or whatever but I didn’t think you’d like me,” Eridan softly says after a moment.

“Well, welcome to the club, here’s your New Member Packet and make sure to thoroughly read through page three because it points out that your first mistake was being an idiot. Your second mistake was thinking I didn’t care and your third mistake is being interested in me, of all trolls. I say this with all seriousness, Eridan: I can’t stay in one quadrant with you.”

There, you admitted the worst of it. All the cards are on the table and Eridan can take it (take you) or leave it. You hope beyond hope it’s the first option.

Eridan pulls back from you. “Not to piss in your Wheaties, Kar,” he states wryly, “but I kinda picked up on that a while ago and frankly I don’t give a gilded shit.”

If you hadn’t already cried like twenty times today you’d probably conjure up a fresh batch of dismay fluid, complimentary of your batshit crazy emotions. Thankfully, you aren’t allotted the time necessary to think about any of this because Eridan kisses you.

You squeak and shove him away. “Did you really, honestly, actually just kiss me while covered in tears and snot and fuck knows what else? You legitimately thought that was a good fucking idea??”

“Fuckin’... sorry, Kar,” Eridan whines, and you pretend not to notice how he pouts as he scrubs his face with a scarf, which is gross in its own way but you ignore it in favor of making yourself more presentable as well. Eridan even attempts to finger-comb his hair and as you watch him, you think that maybe he’s nervous. It’s a little cute.

You do him a colossal solid and snatch him up, and this time, you kiss him first.

Eridan sags into it and gathers you up in his arms like he might lose you, and you think that maybe it feels a little awkward to kiss while standing in the middle of your living room. You get a hand between you and his chest and push him away again, ignoring the slight look of concern on Eridan’s face from being shoved off a second time. Wordlessly, you grab him by the arm and lead him to your respiteblock and subsequently to your platform, which you hop onto with ease.

“Take off your shoes,” you instruct Eridan, and he does so without protest. You do something you’ve wanted to do for a long time and don’t care how cheesy it is: you take hold of his scarf and pull him to you, and he slips onto the platform as you seal your lips with his once more.

He’s cold, as expected, and the contrast is welcomed as it gives you something to focus on other than how you should totally be losing it about making out with your crush. Eridan is kissing you, willingly, and as he grips your sides with slightly shaking hands you know he’s as excited as you feel. You want him and finally, after all this time, you have him.

His lips are softer than you ever imagined and as they slide against yours you’re suddenly aware of just how hungry you are for him; you set your hands on each side of Eridan’s face and cradle his head as you tip him to the side, just so you can kiss him harder, kiss him how you like. The angle gives you better access to him and Eridan willingly lets you maneuver him as you see fit, seemingly eager to please, and when he wraps his arms around you and pulls you close you let him.

The contact sends a shiver up your spine and you lean further into him enough that you can feel his pusher hammering through his chest and you hope he can feel yours too. You slide your hands across Eridan’s cheeks and over his big, frilly fins. They’re so thin and delicate that you could shred them to pieces in an instant if you wanted, but instead of Eridan asking you to stop he simply shudders, fins shaking ever so slightly under your fingers. He makes a small noise into your mouth that emboldens you further; you repeat the motion, gentle and smooth, starting at the elegant curve of his jaw and trailing your fingertips up and over each individual tine of his fins until your hands land in his hair, and you greedily thread them through the softest hair you’ve ever felt until you reach his horns. You slide your hands up those as well; they’re polished and glossy and when you get to the tips you slip your hands back down until they’re resting at Eridan’s neck.

You trail your fingers over the fine hairs on the nape of his neck and grin against his mouth when he shivers, his own hands damn near convulsing at your back to pull you impossibly closer to him as if he hasn’t already tried that several times. Something twists tight in your belly as his lips slide against yours and his hands creep lower. A rush of dizzying heat races all the way down to your toes that has you squirming and you feel cold fingers creep underneath your sweater, grabbing at your hips.

With how you’re both sitting it’s a bit of an awkward angle, and you figure you ought to correct that.

You get up on your hands and knees and accidentally disengage long enough to feel the exhale of cold breath against your lips, delighting in the way Eridan chases after you for more, chirping softly.

Patience is a virtue and neither of you seem to have such a quality; you kiss him again, rougher this time, your heart running a mile a minute as your carefully navigate yourself directly into Eridan’s lap, your thighs on either side of him. His hands snake up your back while his too-sharp teeth graze your bottom lip and you maybe gasp into his mouth because he could destroy you, if he wanted, and instead he’s holding you so sweetly you could sob.

You want more, you _need_ more, you want him all over you and the thought makes something ache deep in your middle. Your head is spinning in circles and you murmur something unintelligible against Eridan’s lips when his hands sweep over your overheated skin that makes you wish there weren't any clothes in the way.

Eridan peels himself away from you and you whine, indignant.

“Kar,” he manages to say between heavy breaths, “Kar, slow down, I need air.”

You grunt to acknowledge him then go straight for his neck, grabbing him by the chin and tipping his head up to place an open-mouthed kiss right on his pulse-point. Eridan nearly chokes on a string of garbled chirps and settles for tipping his head back for you, unabashedly panting into the open air.

His hands exit your sweater and move to your shoulders where he kneads at the fabric, and when you test the waters and gently scrape your teeth against his jugular he outright trills for you and fists your hair at the back of your head, pushing it down.

He wants more? You can give him more.

You bite him - not too hard - right on the neck then kiss it better and do it again, and maybe one more time for good luck. You shove your own hands up Eridan’s shirt and smooth them up over his chest; your touch must burn like a flame to him but he’s drawn to its light regardless as he arches his back up into your hands, warbling a senseless stream of syllables which you presume to be sea tongue. Your fingertips skirt down his sides and catch on his gills; you've heard via the grapevine that seadwellers have different anatomy and gills are just the start of it. Out of curiosity, you trace a gill slat with a fingertip (you're careful not to accidentally poke anything inside) and feel as it flares open and closed.

Eridan chirps and you take that as a good sign to continue, ghosting both of your hands ever so lightly across his gills as you lick a stripe up his neck and revel in how Eridan keens for you. They must be sensitive like his fins, you surmise, and as he wriggles under your touch you think you've never seen such a wonderful sight in all your life. You can feel slick gathering in your nook and your bulge has unsheathed just enough to rub uncomfortably against your underwear and decide that you want Eridan - _all_ of him.

You kiss and nibble at his neck some more, then fumble at the hem of his shirt and yank it up a few inches to expose a delicious strip of chilly skin, grabbing his sides and rolling your hips into his ever so slightly as best you can in your current position. Eridan sucks in a breath and you croon so sweetly into the crook of his neck.

“Kar,” he breathes, “are we gonna…?”

“Yeah, if you want,” you tell him hastily, directing him to lean back against the platform headboard so you can quickly adjust yourself on top of him, rolling your hips again experimentally and balling his shirt in your fists at the wave of pure delight that lights up your system as a result.

Eridan nearly puts a few holes in your platform cover as he scrabbles beneath you, and you hear a _thwack_ resulting from him hitting his horns against the headboard. You look at the slender, graceful curve of his neck and how he screws his eyes shut, mouth open as he pants, and lean forward enough to seal your lips together again. Your bulge is straining against your pants and you can feel Eridan’s bulge through his own; you grind hard against him and moan into each other's mouths and he grips your hips hard enough to bruise, urging you on. Your nook clenches down on nothing and you’re sure your pants are already a stained mess and you don’t care.

“Always wanted to do this, if that’s not too forward to say,” Eridan helpfully informs you between kisses.

“Me too.” You’d wonder how long he’s wanted you if you weren’t so busy wanting _him_.

Eridan touches the hem of your pants, hooking a finger inside just behind the button. “Can I?” he asks, and you nod your head yes almost furiously.

There’s nothing more you could want in the world right now than his hand on your junk, and when he takes your hand and places it over his own you know you’re both very much on the same frequency.

You palm him through his jeans as Eridan undoes yours, and when he lowers your boxers enough to let your bulge out you watch his fins flap like butterfly wings. He stares at your bulge like he’s starving for it and when the bastard licks his lips you turn more than a little scarlet in the cheeks.

“Fuckin’ hell Kar it’s better than I thought it would be,” he says terribly and you want to throw him off the platform. “It’s so _red._”

“Great!” you bark scornfully. The last thing you need is to feel awkward and embarrassed right now so you nearly shred Eridan’s pants trying to get them open, and when Eridan attempts to hide his silent laughter behind a hand you nearly do throw him off the platform.

And because he’s such a magnanimous guy, Eridan fully undoes his pants for you and the second he whips it out your eyebrows launch straight up off of your face and into orbit, never to be seen again.

“Holy _shit_,” you gasp. You stare at Eridan’s bulge and try not to let your jaw hit the floor but you don’t think you’ve ever actually seen a sea troll’s bulge before now, not even in porn.

It’s the most gorgeous shade of intense violet but what you’re currently focused on are what you can only describe as ‘fins’ running up nearly the entire length of Eridan’s bulge on either side, tapering up at the top. They’re nothing like normal fins - more like a thick sine wave someone decided to glue on a bulge and curiosity gets the better of you.

You grab Eridan’s bulge right at the base and stroke up the entire length, watching as the fins (or maybe ridges?) slide right through your hand. They don’t have as much give as you thought and if you were excited to fuck Eridan before, you’re damn near about to throw a party now.

“This is going right in my nook,” you state, and this time it’s Eridan’s turn to go violet in the cheeks.

“_Oh_,” is all he says, and when he reaches out and touches your bulge you nearly shriek. “Sorry,” Eridan hastily apologizes, “I know I’m cold.”

You grimace. “It’sokI’llgetusedtoit,” you grit through your teeth, and you stop Eridan as he removes his hand, catching him by the wrist. “It’s fine, really,” you say sincerely.

Eridan gets the memo when you place his hand back on you and he strokes you, internally willing your bulge not to suck right back up inside you from his frozen hands. Thankfully, mercifully, you run pretty damn hot and warm him up to something much more tolerable in no time, and your bulge enthusiastically curls around his fingers.

You explore Eridan’s bulge as he busies himself with yours, catching one of the fin-ridge thingies between your fingers and rubbing it. Eridan jerks and makes a noise - these are sensitive, obviously, and you grin maliciously as you repeat the motion on both sides, rubbing up the entire bulge to find the most sensitive spots. The fins seem most susceptible at the tip and the base (judging from Eridan’s reactions), and when you encircle your hands around those two areas and effectively jack it, Eridan nearly chokes on his own spit, squeezing your own bulge just hard enough to send a pang of _want_ straight to your nook and it aches with the need to be filled.

“Nghk - Kar you’re gonna ruin the fun real early if y’keep doin’ that,” he warns you, and he sighs when you remove your hands.

When you get up and off of him he reacts like he’s said something wrong, only to stop right in his tracks when he sees you beginning to shuck off all of the clothes on your lower half. He sits back down and you laugh at him, throwing your pants on the floor and kicking off your slick-soaked underwear. You direct Eridan to lay on his back; he lifts his butt up enough for you to yank his pants off and you get back on top of him, standing on your knees.

You take Eridan’s bulge and direct it to your nook, the tip of it lazily sliding against your nooklips as it searches for something to bury itself in. It’s happening, this is really, actually happening - you’re gonna fuck Eridan and your heart is running a mile a minute from sheer nervous exhiliration.

“Hey, you good?” Eridan asks you, planting his hands on your thighs. “You’re shakin’.”

“I might be a little excited.” Eridan pats you on the knee. “You good too?”

“Yeah,” he says, and apparently he’s impatient as well because he tries tugging you down.

You get the hint and let Eridan’s freaky bulge slide into the slick heat of your nook, and at first the chill of it isn’t so bad but the deeper it goes the more frigid it gets and you suck in a breath through your teeth. “It’s like fucking an icicle,” you complain, but you don’t stop slowly feeding Eridan’s bulge into you, easing down on it carefully until you’re stuffed full.

It’s… a lot. In a very, very good way, and Eridan is watching you with glassy eyes, mouth just barely hanging open, and if you weren’t so embarrassed you might lean back and push your hips forward enough to let him watch his bulge enter you. Unfortunately you’re you so you don’t do that, but Eridan seems to be enjoying the show regardless. Your bulge is smearing red all over your lower tummy and after getting used to the feeling of Eridan inside you, you pick yourself up and drop back down again, setting up a slow rhythm.

You stick your hands back up Eridan’s shirt and skate them along his stomach, his hips, his sides, wherever you can touch, and finally get fed up with the material being in the way and hike the shirt all the way up to his armpits. Eridan’s gills are great violet gashes in his sides and every time you drop yourself back down on his bulge you see them flare open, just a little bit. When Eridan gasps they damn near gape at you and you place your hands on top of them, smoothing them shut, rubbing at the very corners of them light enough to make Eridan shiver.

He’s so gorgeous, even moreso when you bear down on his bulge and he bucks up into you, covering his mouth with the back of his hand to prevent himself from making any noise. You don’t know how you got so lucky to end up with a handsome seadweller in your bed but like hell you’re going to complain about it.

“You’re so hot,” he tells you, and you aren’t sure if he’s talking about your looks or the temperature of your body. “Push down and up right here.”

Eridan takes your hand and puts it on his lower tummy, directing you how he wants to be touched. He uses your hand to push down and up as instructed, and you nearly see stars when he arches his back off the bed, horns digging into the cover, and _moans_. You’ve never heard a sound more beautiful until now and it makes your bulge nearly tie itself into a knot.

He answers your unsaid question a moment later. “You aren’t the only freak a’ nature around here, I got some egg-making bullshit in me and sometimes it weighs so heavy on my inner bits that it feels real good to have it massaged.”

For starters, you’re impressed he managed to get that long string of words out without fucking up as you mercilessly ride him into oblivion.

Secondly, you’re much, _much_ too horny to care that Eridan Lays Eggs and that for whatever reason he trusted _you_, and chose _this particular moment_ mid-fuck to tell you about it, so you helpfully file that information away for Future Karkat to unpack.

You just nod at him and push down and up again like Eridan asked, watching him mutter a series of clicks as he fists the platform cover. His bulge writhes inside of you when you sit on him and grind down, circling your hips, trying to cram every inch of violet bulge into your already overstuffed nook as possible and every flick and twist sends coils of white hot warmth and pleasure up your spine. You warble to the rafters and Eridan trills at you in response as you knead at his lower belly, and you try not to feel so embarrassed over panting like a beast in heat. Not that Eridan isn’t doing the same damn thing but every breath is punctuated with a small, barely there “Ah,” and you swear your nook gushes every time.

He’s noisy. You really, really like that.

Eridan grabs your ass and pulls you down as he moves his hips up, forcing in the very last of his twitching bulge until he’s buried in you to the hilt and you shout. It hits something deep in you that leaves you feeling warm, loose, and shivery, and all the while your head is spinning with the scent of your mixed pheromones and how damn _good_ it feels to be filled.

The gentle _slap-slap-slap_ of skin on skin isn’t as gross as you thought it would be, and you trill to Eridan, desperate and needy, keeping yourself up on your knees as best you can so Eridan can fuck you how he likes. You put more pressure on his lower tummy and he rams into you so hard you cry out like a pailing prompting vid star. You don’t care how you sound anymore, you’re sweaty and slick with want and you need Eridan to _ruin_ you.

The walls of your nook ripple and clench the same time as Eridan stuffs you full and when he hits home he snarls, then sits up abruptly and snatches you up.

A second later you’re thrown on your back and Eridan is over you, caging you in, cramming every inch of bulge into your greedy dripping nook as he can and you both moan in tandem as he drives into you mercilessly. You wrap your arms and legs around him and urge him on, begging him to give you what you need; he leans down to kiss at your neck and you tilt your head back in the most pathetic display of submission ever but you don’t care. He bites you and you yowl, digging your claws into his back and he smacks into you so hard you can barely breathe. He holds you there and you sing to him, his fins fanning open as much as possible in an exquisite display of pure lust and when he growls savagely into your ear you nearly fall to pieces.

He fumbles for your bulge and pumps it as he fucks you raw and you can’t even muster the focus to warn him that you’re very, very close. He hits that sweet spot in you over and over as he rams into your aching nook and you spill right there, not a bucket in sight. You wail and can’t even hear it with all the blood rushing in your ears and you cling to Eridan as he rails you into the platform, kissing the bite on your neck better. You ride out your orgasm and pet at Eridan’s fins and his hair, his back, anything you can touch and you feel like you’re floating in a cloud high in the sky, not a trouble on your mind, almost blissfully unaware that Eridan is still ramming that perfect violet bulge into your weeping nook and nothing has ever felt so good in your entire existence.

Eridan finishes a moment later and cries against your neck, slamming home into you and filling you with slurry so cold you can feel it. You keep him there and kiss at his cheek, directing him to turn his head so you can kiss him on the mouth instead, which he eagerly accepts. He’s rough at first but by the end he kisses you so gently that you trill for him, low and soft, a sound only for him.

The feeling of him pulling out and subsequently his slurry dripping from you is a little weird but you ignore it. Eridan slumps down onto the bed by your side and you both take a few minutes to catch your breath, basking in the glow of the best fuck you’ve ever had.

Eridan cuddles up to you, and you run your fingers through his hair, sighing.

“Sorry ‘bout the material,” he slurs.

“Nothing a shower can’t fix,” you tell him.

“Yeah but sea trolls got thicker slime on account a’ most of us fuckin’ in the water so it don’t wash away as quick.”

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that,” you deadpan, and ignore not only how a corner of Eridan’s mouth quirks up but also how it’s now going to take you eighty sweeps to wash Eridan’s goop off of your inner thighs. Whatever. It’s another problem for future you, and current you likes to think that swamp crotch is a fair trade for having your brains fucked out.

“You said you can’t stay in one quadrant so I gave you a taste a’ the darker side of things, hope that was ok.”

“It was great, but I think I’m gonna be a little sore,” you tell Eridan truthfully.

He doesn’t say anything else after that, he just wraps himself around you and clings. You pet his hair some more and smile to yourself when he kicks up the breathiest of purrs, and the two of you stay like that for so long that you lose track of time.

“Promise me you won’t leave again,” you ask of Eridan, once you notice him drifting off.

“I’d do anythin’ for you, Kar.”

It’s a satisfactory answer. You curl up a little closer to him and watch as he falls asleep in your arms to get some much-needed rest.

* * *

Your name is Karkat Vantas and tonight is not your wriggling day. You’re starting to think, however, as you drag your fingers through Eridan’s hair and listen to his purrs, that wriggling days aren’t as terrible as you’ve made them out to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Eridan's weenie looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/FYbvFB1.png


End file.
